Beaverton School District is the 3rd largest school district in the state of Oregon, serving over 40,000 students. Our district encompasses 57 square miles and has a residential population of over 264,000. Because our district is so large and roads are crowded, traditional travel between schools for professional development is a challenge. Last spring, our Teaching and Learning Dept. was tasked to envision and implement a new professional learning model. Instead of relying on traditional sub release time and sporadic professional development days, our district is moving forward with a Wednesday early release model that provides teachers opportunities of self-selected collaboration and topic-specific courses.

We decided to implement a cross-district model that employs face to face, webinar, and virtual learning. We have integrated several systems (Canvas, GAFE, PD Portal, Zoom) to provide a cohesive experience that offers seamless registration, formative assessment, resources, evaluations, and credit on a PD resume.

As we redefine our pd model, we plan to focus on equity issues, tech implementation, and assessment practices. By offering many different types of pd delivery, we are hoping to reach more employees (classified and certified) in an efficient, effective, and collaborative manner.

On our September PD early release day, we offered 46 PD events around the district, with 15 of these events being webinars.

We have intentionally worked to gather systemic course feedback, and the variety and quality of opportunities has garnered high ratings from our staff.

All PD participants are electronically registered, provided notifications, and have a PD resume which is housed on our district's Teacher Portal (Teachersource). Not only can teachers track their own PD over their entire career, but our portal allows us to analyze registration data which subsequently helps to identify future needs.

Our offerings in October climbed from 46 to 61 events as teachers and district specialists realized the power of this new platform. We are continuing to add events for PD dates for the rest of the year. In addition to an increase in events, the number of staff members who are collaborating with others outside of their school is increasing as well. Our month to month participant registration jumped 11%, and we are working hard to continue this trend.

For many employees, professional development is seen as a "sit and get" endeavor on a subject not of their choosing. This new PD model has allowed our staff to engage in training that they choose, and they get to collaborate with staff across the district who have the same interests.

Time, distance, and traffic have been perennial barriers to collaboration across district. This new initiative, though, is redefining choice, collaboration, time, and geography.